Department-Based Task Routing in Notion: A Political Success Story
"Marketing department, we want you to create this brochure" - but who actually gets the task?
At TD, direct assignments were causing friction. Here's how we turned a political challenge into an efficient workflow.
The Smart Approach
Instead of forcing people to know who does what, we created a department-first routing system. The magic? Tasks land with department heads, who then assign to the right team member or VA.
How It Actually Works:
- Request goes to department (not a person)
- System automatically notifies department head
- Manager gets a subtask to assign the work
- Original task stays unassigned until manager delegates
Why Teams Love It:
- Requesters don't need to know team structures
- Managers maintain control of their team's workload
- VAs get clean, properly-scoped tasks
- No more "why did you assign this to my VA?" conflicts
Pro Tip: "Don't overcomplicate the properties. We created a simple department lookup that handles the routing automatically. The simpler the system, the more people actually use it."
Up Next: Check out our Sprint Implementation Guide to see how we connected this with project planning.
